Did you know today is 2sday?

And why do our brains look for patterns..

#2sday

Today is 2sday - 22022022 - 22nd day of the 2nd month of 2022.

And a Tuesday

Also a perfect palindrome - 22022022

Why does our brain gravitate towards patterns or symmetry in a chaotic universe?

Detecting patterns is an important part of how humans learn and make decisions.

Ian Krajbich, assistant professor of psychology and economics at The Ohio State University conducted a research with Arkady Konovalov, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zurich. The study appears in the journal Neuron.

Humans try to detect patterns in their environment all the time, Konovalov said, because it makes learning easier. For example, if you are given driving directions in an unfamiliar city, you can try to memorize each turn. But if you see a pattern -- for example, turn left, then right, then left, then right -- it will be easier to remember.

And it turns out its a unique power of mammals. The neocortex, the outermost layer of the brain, is found only in mammals and is responsible for humans' ability to recognize patterns.

So what we are trying to do is finding rules and patterns to make learning easier. And not having to store all the information, but connect one to another using patterns and make sense of the world.

Which also means we are uniquely positioned to fabricate patterns when none exist!

Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin devised six experiments to test students' reactions to different situations of uncertainty. One experiment mimicked the stock market, while another asked students to search for images in television static. Time and again, students saw images where there were none and found stock patterns that didn't exist. 

Or worse we see different patterns in the same image, baffling each other. Like the recent number pattern in this image below.

Till next week, take care!

Ashwin

If you have not yet gotten your copy of the Return to Work Checklist for Emotionally Healthy Workplaces, head over to manahwellness.com and get your copy today!

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Ashwin Naik is a Healthcare Entrepreneur and the co-founder of Manah Wellness

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